Celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsay Wins Libel Suit

LONDON – Gordon Ramsay has won a libel action against a newspaper that accused the celebrity chef of faking scenes on his reality TV show.

The Evening Standard claimed in November that parts of "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares" — in which Ramsay helps save failing restaurants — had been exaggerated to make an average restaurant look like a health hazard.

It also claimed the program had put an incompetent chef into place at Bonaparte's, a struggling bistro in northern England that was featured in one episode.

Ramsay's lawyer, Keith Schilling, told a judge at London's High Court the claims were false.

"No scenes had been faked, the kitchen was indeed untidy and a health hazard, the restaurant was already in financial difficulty before the program was filmed and the chef was not installed by the claimants," Schilling said.

The newspaper's lawyer, Adam Cannon, said the Evening Standard now accepted that the claims were untrue.

The newspaper's publisher, Associated Newspapers Ltd., agreed to print an apology and pay $138,000 in damages to Ramsay and the makers of his program.

"I won't let people write anything they want to about me," said Ramsay, a Michelin-starred chef famous for his foul-mouthed outbursts and star of Fox network's reality competition "Hell's Kitchen."

"Even I have limits and on this occasion the line was crossed. I am satisfied with today's apology and am looking forward to future series of `Kitchen Nightmares,"' he said Tuesday.